exploring wonderland

the point of Chaplin’s turning point

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I’ve been thinking of some random things lately. I already wrote about sexual repressions in the 80s before, but the fact that the word ‘fuck’ actually derived from “Fornication Under Consent of King” made me realize that perhaps Foucoult was right. Sex is indeed something repressed from the very beginning. The other thing I was thinking is how I oftenly heard “I was inspired by this book, that song, etc.” So was it every wordcraftery overflowing around was just only old texts, reproduced along with new ideas (which is probably a reproduced text product itself), distributed and got reproduced again over and over again? Perhaps that was somewhat true. Oh well, maybe I’d better keep this for next time.

What I want to talk about is not that much distinct, though. It is about an idea that pops in my head after I read a book chapter about Charlie Chaplin. It explains on how things, not just the relations of movie stars as potential political stakeholder, but also, how the world, as it evolves, liquify borders between things. This appears on how Charlie Chaplin forget his main principal thing that arose his popularity: political truths wrapped in black comedy. Thus it’s what the world proclaim that the moment Charlie start opening his mouth became the turning point of his glory. He became outspoken about politics, and his movie was being more as the bitter truth rather than satirical jokes out of it. What people see is how he tried to be himself in his movies and speeches by being outloud, but on the contrary, the thing that made him so well known is when he became The Tramp. Again, packaging plays an essential role.

But what I see is, it means that the reproduced text is perhaps the most political thing. Charlie Chaplin is the agent who eventually came with the right package that turns out to be ‘hit’. Unfortunately, the agent and the text clicks.

As time goes by, when the demand doesn’t meet, the popularity inclines. The text, in this case Chaplin’s movie, is the thing that sells, and being controversial for its content. Even FBI made a fuss about it, especially when Chaplin had the meeting and relationship with some people from the Left, despite of him just being fond of some points of socialist. The movie itself is the mixture of Charlie’s personal views, the reality, wrapped and shaped with somewhat commercial: American style black comedy – the one said as ‘creativity’ or ‘art’ (I must note this as Charlie wasn’t an American as far as I know, and refused being an American citizen. I’ll revise if I’m wrong).

Even the texts are more or less the same, again, the packaging is different. It’s not the irony that I underline. Somehow the inclination of Chaplin’s popularity could also prove that people only see what they want to see. It highlights on how mortals had a black spot in their mindsets. When the border is getting hazy, Charlie swifts from a comedian who highlights minor political-social facts wrapped to be profiting on screen into a political orator who in turn – take sides and give funds.

On the other hand, the audience, when the boxing process happens in mind, trigerred by circumstances, expectations and other factors, the black spot widens. That answers why even the essence of the text didn’t have a substantial change, the feedback is totally different. Its probably the matter of packaging. This also explains why people chose to murder Galileo Galilei when he said the world is round, instead of trying to find evidence. Against the dogma, they said. This inferred that on some point, humans mental state choose to think what they want to think.

Perhaps next time when I’m more qualified I’ll write more about this. That’s it for now.

About Judith

Hello everyone! I share my thoughts here. Sometimes it may sounds a little weird or too radical, I know. But then it is just a spark of thoughts I would love to share :) And yeah, as you know "knowledge is a power, but ignorance is a bliss" [Plato]
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